


"Hearing voices"

by Adarog (RembrandtsWife)



Category: Biblical Midrash
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-07
Updated: 2009-10-07
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:31:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/Adarog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I want you to summon the dead for me.  I want you to call up--a spirit."  The witch of En-Dor tells her version of the night Saul came to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Hearing voices"

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Hebrew Bible Fanworks Community, [](http://in-the-beginning.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**in_the_beginning**](http://in-the-beginning.dreamwidth.org/). Thanks to [](http://kass.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**kass**](http://kass.dreamwidth.org/) for beta work.

Disclaimer: I am following in the footsteps of a long line of interpreters who felt that the best way to illuminate the meaning of a story was with another story. When it's the Hebrew canon, we call it midrash. When it's tv, we call it fanfic. *g*

The sons of Israel do not believe the dead can speak. Or so they say. In their houses there are no shrines for the dead, no images of the Mother of Life, no pictures at all. They sacrifice and sing songs to a god who is not even there, who speaks and is heard but cannot be seen, who sends messengers that look like men but is not a man, or a beast, or a flame, or a wind, or anything. Only a voice.

I wonder what the Voice says to Saul, King of Israel.

He thinks I do not know who he is. I will let him think so--safer for me. His cloak is rough wool, frayed at the edges, but his tunic is fine underneath it, bleached white and clean, and the coins he shows me bear the stamp of the two keruvim, the image of the king's mint. Out here in the country people pay me in fresh meat, in flour, in dried dates, not in gold or silver. He thinks I do not know that the two men who wait outside my house, wrapped in their cloaks and standing awake, are armed and ready to kill me, if need be, to protect him. I know him--the man who outlawed me and my kind, those who walk in the places that his kind call empty and darkness. But I will wait and see.

In the lamplight his face is tired; it blurs before my sight as if I were falling asleep. He has shaved his face, clumsily, as part of his disguise; there is a cut on his chin.

"I want you to summon the dead for me. I want you to call up--a spirit. I have gold, much gold. Tell me you will do it, and I will name the one I want."

"Summoning the dead is a crime. Speaking with the spirits of the trees is a crime. Walking in the waste places of the darkness is a crime. Saul, the king, has outlawed all who speak with spirits and walk while they sleep, you know that." I shuffle and squint. "Are you trying to trap me? Who told you to come here?"

"No trap." He shifts from foot to foot as he stoops opposite me. His eyes glitter as with fever. "As the LORD lives, I am not trying to trap you. No one is trying to harm you. As the LORD lives, no one will report you, there will be no punishment. You must help me."

Looking at his feverish eyes, his naked face, his tense crouch, I think, No one can help you, Saul. Except perhaps your god, but he won't, will he? And so you come to me.

"Swear by the name of your god. Say it."

He shakes his head, hides his face. "We do not say his name. You must not hear it. Only the priests know."

I hide my smile. "Very well." I tap the table between us. "Lay down your gold, and tell me the name of your spirit."

Saul lifts his head. "Samuel. Call up Samuel, the LORD's prophet."

Asherah help me! I should have known. It was Samuel who chose Saul, Samuel who made him king, and then it was Samuel who brought that boy to court, David, the one who turned so many heads, killed the Philistine champion, and now strides in the van of Saul's armies.

"No. I cannot. Your dead may go down to the house of shades, but who knows where your god's prophets walk? Go from me, let the king's men come and take my life."

He throws himself in front of me and lays hold of my knees. "You must! you must! I have no guidance, I have no answers--I know not what is happening to me...."

He is close to tears. I understand now: the Voice that is his god no longer speaks to him. He is alone, and being alone is a thing that some men cannot bear.

I take his hands and put them gently aside. "Very well. Come with me to the grove, and I will summon your prophet."

He follows after me through the darkness, and his men follow after him. I do not need the torch, but I carry it for his sake. He stumbles over the tree roots, cursing, as we make our way into the heart of the grove, along the secret path. Deer walked here, birds flew here, long before the Israelites came, long before my people settled here. We did not bring the mysteries with us; we found them already here, and they revealed themselves to us.

In the clear space at the center, I light the sacred fire and sprinkle it with herbs. I circle thrice around, murmuring the secret words. I can feel my head lighten, feel my feet begin to leave the ground. I am floating. Saul hides beneath the trees, his men to either side of him. I sit down on the sheepskin and rock back and forth, letting my body sink as my spirit floats away.

The spirit roads are dim by day and brighter by night. The stars make a river that the wise goer can walk upon. Where water springs up from the earth, there is a way down, into the darkness that is always bright. Where will I find him, Samuel, prophet of the nameless Voice? The trees whisper and the cry of a hunting owl lures me on. Fear in the small things that run from the flight of the owl, and fear in the heart of the man who attends my spirit flight.

"Samuel! Samuel! Where are you, Samuel, servant of the LORD?"

I am back in my body, looking at the dying fire. Beside it something like mist pools up from the ground. I hear the gurgling of water coming from my own throat, the voice of the spirits. The rage of the prophet surges through me and says, "Saul! you are Saul!"

I scrape at the dirt with my fingers. "Why did you deceive me? You, the king, break your own law, you are Saul, what have you done?"

"Don't--don't be afraid," Saul chokes out. "What, what do you see?"

He is not allowed to see. His god says the things of the spirit must only be heard. He is not allowed to see, and he has missed the old man who spoke to him, guided him, made him king. The mist pools up, water from the dead place, burbling in my throat, and he is there, yes, a prophet, angry that a witch like me has called him forth.

"He looks like an old man, wrapped in a mantle, he is old, he is angry, oh, king of Israel...."

Saul staggers forward into the grove, looking toward the spot where I was looking, the form that held still in the mist under the starlight. Perhaps then he does see something, for he falls on his knees and presses his face to the earth.

The voice of the prophet sounds through me. "Saul. Why have you disturbed me? Why have you summoned me forth?" The voice addressed the king as one would chide an unruly child.

Saul gasps and trembles. His men back away into the darkness like startled children.

"Saul. Saul. Why have you disturbed my rest?"

Saul gasps again, a terrible sick sound. "Samuel. Master. We are at war! The Philistines are at our throats. They are coming. I have no dreams, I have no visions, I hear nothing of the word of God--he has deserted me, and I know not, I know not what to do."

The form of the old man wavers before me; the fire leaps up, and the wind moans suddenly amongst the trees. "Why do you turn to me," cries the old man's voice from my throat, "when the LORD has turned from you? You have not obeyed him, and he has turned aside. The LORD is your enemy now, Saul, and he has taken the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your heart-son, David."

Saul cries aloud and tries to raise himself up, to stretch out beseeching hands, but the voice roars on, shaking me as the wind shakes the palms. "The LORD has delivered Israel into the hands of the Philistines because of you. Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me where I am, and the armies of Israel will be routed."

The king surges to his knees and then falls full length upon the ground, like a tree that is cut down, a stunned bull. As far from away I hear him weeping as he grinds his face into the dirt. The mist disperses and sinks, the angry spirits depart, and I am left to myself, empty and hollow and ravenously hungry, as I always am after this work.

I am able to rise before Saul can, however. "You must get up. Come, you should eat and then go."

He shakes his head, his face still pressed to the earth. "No. I have not eaten this day or this night, and what is the use? Though I should eat like a lion, there is no strength in me. The LORD has turned his face to another."

I bend down, though my head swims, and take him by the shoulder. "Lord king. You must get up. I have food--I must eat--let me feed you and your men."

He does not rise until his men come forward, at my beckoning. They all but carry him back through the woods; he mumbles to himself like one in a fever-dream. He slumps at my table as his men stand over him and shift from foot to foot. I put out bread and oil, a jug of wine and cups, and set to cooking the meat which I butchered so long ago, yesterday morning. The smell of the roasting meat reaches the king; he takes a little bread and wine, and when I put a plate before him, he eats. But I see the meat and drink turning to smoke within him. I see the spears of the battlefield that is to come already piercing his breast and side.

King Saul and his men go away before daybreak. The battle is far away, and news is slow to reach me, but in time I hear that all befell as the spirit said. David, son of Jesse, is king now in Israel.

I hear the voices of the spirits, wind and tree, bird and snake, the water flowing and the rocks sitting. I hear the words people do not say when they come to me for help. I hear the voice of my goddess, Asherah, when the wind blows in the trees; I hear Ba'al when it thunders. The sons of Israel hear no voice but that of their god, and when he ceases to speak, a man's heart is as empty as Sheol.


End file.
